In general, digital signal processing (DSP) systems utilize binary arithmetic and large linear number systems. Analog to digital converters are typically an essential element in DSP systems to allow the digital system to interface with an analog world. If a companded digital number, such as a PCM digital word, is utilized, a conversion from nonlinear to linear units may be effected by expanding the PCM word. However, a large amount of resolution is lost which results in a quantization error. The majority of DSP applications generally require a data word size of at least thirteen bits. Therefore, at least a twelve bit DAC which functions in the range of 100 KHz or about one microsecond per bit is commonly required. Typical monotonic A/D converters utilize R/2R resistor ladders or binarily weighted resistor ladders and require N stages for N bits where N is an integer. However, the accuracy in the last stage of such a converter is (1/2.sup.N). For a twelve bit system, the accuracy required in the twelfth stage is 1/(4,096) which is not typically feasible. To obtain the required accuracy in the twelve or thirteen bit area, thin film resistors which are trimmed are commonly used. However, using a trim technology substantially increases production costs. Furthermore, thin film resistors are not a pure CMOS process since thin film resistors require a resist material such as nichrome on the device surface and therefore may not readily interface with CMOS circuitry. Others have also used a "flash" converter which has a string of 2.sup.N resistors for an N bit converter. A primary advantage of a flash converter is that the converter is monotonic and monotonicity is independent of the accuracy of the elements since each element in the flash converter represents one code point. However, such a converter is bit limited by the number and size of resistors associated with high order converters. For example, a twelve bit converter requires 4,096 resistors to implement. Therefore, a need exists in high bit applications for an N bit converter which exhibits the monotonicity characteristics of a flash converter but which requires fewer elements than 2.sup.N.